President Obama doesn’t get enough credit. As fellow Big Thinker Kris Broughton wrote in a recent post, it’s ridiculous to say that Obama hasn’t accomplished much while in office, whatever […]
All Articles
So let’s now speak about the future. You may have heard about the asteroid Apophis, which is about the size of the Rose Bowl Stadium. It’s said that the large […]
University classes are starting so I thought I would write a blog post that would encourage students to think about the world. This idea came from a project that was […]
How about this for some real corporate mumbo jumbo? BP’s own internal report into the Deepwater Horizon disaster mixes the technical with the pseudo diplomatic. But there is no doubt […]
Dr. Norman Frost of the University of Wisconsin at Madison tells Big Think “drug-testing policies in professional sports are completely illogical.”
Like any sensible person, I worry about the imminent arrival of Skynet and the Cylons, in the form of artificial intelligences that could be physically, intellectually and perhaps, as J. […]
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa wasn’t fazed after a gang of baseball-bat-wielding Gambino crime family members nearly beat him to death for making disparaging comments about John Gotti Sr. on […]
A recent study by members of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has been getting a lot of attention – one where it was suggested that we are very close to the […]
The most interesting and important things about science often go uncovered in the news media. Journalists and editors–especially in today’s world of cutbacks–have always tended to define what’s newsworthy in […]
“Can the Ten Commandments be understood apart from religion?” William Galston reviews a new book which argues the Ten Commandments are not religious in nature.
While philosophers of yore postulated on human nature, today’s thinkers approach tough questions with the tools of cognitive science. A philosophy professor on ‘experimental philosophy’.
“Heavy drinkers also live longer than abstainers. In other words, consuming disturbingly large amounts of alcohol seems to be better than drinking none at all.” The Frontal Cortex explains why.
“Despite being pilloried by the public lately, a banker’s lot can’t be all that bad. At least, that’s what Wal-Mart executives must be thinking.” Forbes on the retail giant’s new banking ideas.
“Shouldn’t we expect a scramble to put forward plans for promoting growth and restoring jobs? Apparently not.” Paul Krugman is critical of backward-looking economic theorizing.
“Free exercise of religion? No, thanks. The taming and domestication of religious faith is one of the unceasing chores of civilization.” Christopher Hitchens on the freedom to practice faith.
“What does it take to trade in a commodity that cannot be seen or touched—and isn’t even a commodity in the United States?” Scientific American reports on traders in the global carbon market.
“The magic income: $75,000 a year. As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness.”
“The pastor who plans to burn Korans is despicable. But the rush to condemn this maniac clouds legitimate free-speech debate.” Tunku Varadarajan on when rights should be abridged.
“Are leaders born or made? Evolution may be throwing us a curve ball when it comes to picking them in the modern world” The New Scientist says leaders must first convince the rest of us.
How can space impact and improve the happiness of a community?
NASA is in a catch 22 situation. Five years ago, Congress mandated by law that NASA should track 90% of all of the dangerous asteroids and comets that may threaten […]
When you compile a list of artists that other artists love to hate, a few names typically appear: Jeff Koons, Thomas Kinkade, and, perhaps most virulently, Damien Hirst. You can […]
The New Yorker’s “Notes on Mourning,” excerpts of Roland Barthes’s (are they?) journal entries regarding the loss of his mother, are extraordinary. They are worth reading for anyone interested in […]
Will Sarah Palin run for president? Could she win? Garance Franke-Ruta argues that Palin’s best strategy would be to remake herself as a leader within the Republican Party. She notes […]
In the wake of the Aug. 23 court decision that halted Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Democrats are gearing up to use stem cell research as a wedge […]
What is happening to the neurochemistry of an addict’s brain that makes that person so unable to do without cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamines?
Who decides what “insane” means? This was the major question of Ken Kesey’s countercultural classic “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which illustrated how mental illness could be deployed by […]
For those of you who don’t frequent Craigslist Adult Services section, life was perhaps pretty uneventful last weekend. However, if you live in the US and are a patron of […]
Few people have felt the muzzle of an automatic machine gun in their gut, let alone survived a kidnapping on their birthday. In January 1998, then-federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was […]
There were two threads of news this morning about potential activity at two fairly active Chilean volcanoes. First, there are reports of explosions (spanish) with ash or merely steam emissions at […]